Sunday 17 October 1999
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Pic of the day: Old but good autumn clothes. Will there be any new ones this fall? ... I woke up to one of the most beautiful love songs I ever heard. And ironically, it was not only in Swedish, it was also decades old. There is virtually no chance that I shall ever hear it again, in time or eternity. I vaguely recall from C.S.Lewis' book "Perelandra" how the protagonist found out that greed was really the desire to repeat a pleasant experience, rather than go on with life and have new experiences. (Bear with me, it's years since I read the book, once, and in Norwegian.) I just automatically thought about it because the beauty and sweetness of this song was to be a once in a lifetime thing. There are things in life who money cannot buy: Sunrises, the smile of a child (well, you can't buy it directly), the sweet scent of apple flowers and new grass. Stuff like that. Children will just open their senses, take in a pleasure, and run along. Grown-ups like me wish to stop the world so we can make it last. But it won't. ... Spent the evening with my best friend and her somewhat elderly aunt. The aunt is OK, she even let me read an article from a theological magazine which she had somehow acquired, detailing one of the church fathers and his view on Gnosis. And Superwoman is, as usual, wonderful. Due to a weeks sickness and hard work, plus last nights lack of sleep but not of drink, she was somewhat more quiet than usual; though still more active than I. She's trying to catch eight hours of sleep tonight (as if!) as we have planned a foray into the clothes department of the by far greatest mall on the south coast of Norway. Yes, tomorrow (God willing, or rather not actively stopping us) we intend to go wild in Sørlandssenteret (The Southlands Center). Yes, for some reason Norway is viewed by its inhabitants as consisting of four major parts: The Eastland, the Southland, the Westland, and Northern Norway. One of these is different, one of them is not the same. Why not Nordland ... the Northland? Because there is already a province by that name. But the last few centuries until recently were spent colonizing the former Saami territories of Troms and Finnmark, encouraging settlers from other parts of Norway to move there, and suppressing the boreal aboriginal culture. So, the "occupied territories" (as we like to call it when the same happens in Israel) are now known as Northern Norway, whereas the Northlands now is Nordland fylke ... Northland province.Everything has an explanation, but not always a popular one. Be that as it may, the relationships up north are fairly good now by international standards, and the whole affair is geographically as close to us as Northern Italy. It is a rather long land I live in. Here on the south coast, it was so warm today that I went without a jacket. Wild, being in the last half of October. The night is cold and clear, though.Oh, I hope I wake up tomorrow! Yay friend! Yay clothes! Yay shopping! ... I scrapped the novel and emptied the trashcan. I still think the concept is worthwhile: Thaumaturge is a superman who is neither hero nor villain, a miracle worker who pretends not to represent God nor Devil. "I'm just some guy who can touch the Pattern of Reality." An important premise is that power is relative: The day you can move mountains, you feel powerless because you cannot move planets. The reason why I scrapped it, however, was that I need to rework the entire person gallery. I thought there was something strange about the female protagonist being a genius in her early twenties studying abroad ... the emergence of her delicious 18 year old sister really clinched it. Back to the drawing board. |